Early Afternoon Update

It’s 1999 all over again! Nervous New York apartment landlords are offering more concessions to lure tenants. [NY Mag]

“Condo owners are definitely dropping their starting prices. Those living downtown—in Chinatown, the financial district, and Greenwich Village, especially—appear to have made the most peace with the new financial-world order, cutting their median asking prices by nearly 11 percent.” [NY Mag]

The banking industry’s taking pre-emptive measures to help borrowers with their mortgages. [NY Times]

General Growth Properties, developer of the South Street Seaport and a giant mixed-use development on East 125th Street, got a reprieve on repaying $900 million in debt. Here’s the kicker: It’s a sign of what could come. “Real-estate observers are watching General Growth’s plight for signs of how lenders will handle imperiled borrowers in this financial crisis. Analysts predict that, as billions of dollars of commercial loans come due in the coming months, many borrowers will seek extensions of payment deadlines from their lenders if new capital remains scarce.” [WSJ]